★★★★★ 0/5

Australia gets to GO!

Update: GO! is on the air with its first night of programming and national advertisements.

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GO4!When the new series of Wipeout airs tonight at 6:30pm, Australia will officially have another new channel.

GO! is Nine’s new digital channel aimed fair and square at eyeballs between the ages of 14-39 years old. With titles including Survivor, Gossip Girl, Fringe, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, Moonlight and TMZ, there are certainly some alluring shows on offer. Compared to 20 to 1, Australia’s Perfect Couple and Commercial Breakdown Adults Only, GO! is practically worthy of an Emmy.

Those of us licking our lips for new episodes of Weeds and The Wire will have to wait just a little big longer. The Vampire Diaries is also due in October.

Like ONE HD does for TEN, GO! will add to Nine’s overall evening share. Programmes that are unique to secondary channels are tallied by OzTAM ratings.

This week when Nine turned on GO!, an SD channel, some viewers with digital TV tuners found Nine went blank as soon as they picked it up. Nine said it did everything it could to warn people of the technical issues, via newspaper ads and offering a helpline on 1300 152 231.

Promos branding GO! have so far seemed cheap and nasty, not much better than regional TV you might see when stuck in a 3 star motel somewhere. Hopefully when it launches tonight it will have a more professional appearance.

GO! also means 9HD breakout programming is no more, which is being particularly felt by AFL fans in Sydney and Brisbane. The AFL Footy Show no longer screens at 9:30pm on 9HD due to the technical limitations of having three channels, and instead screens later to Sydney and Brisbane, just as the NRL Footy Show is later in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. Nine has moved Footy Classified to appease its northern AFL fans.

With GO! now on offer, attention turns to Channel Seven, as the final network to offer its new Freeview contribution.

Despite rushing 7HD to market, with poor programming ever since, Seven will be the last network to offer a new channel. Believed to be watching where its competitiors moved, Seven has kept everyone guessing. Even executives at TEN and Nine are still in the dark as to which way Seven will move.

Despite the fact that the network was reported to make an announcement by March, none has been forthcoming. Seven has previously indicated it has settled on its plans.

After GO! makes its fanfare, it will surely be time for Seven to hijack the limelight.

GO! airs on Channel 99 in metro cities and on 88 on WIN / NBN and will be added to Foxtel further down the track.

Update: GO! opened with a montage of its programming accompanied by an uptempo song. The first commercial break during Wipeout featured ads for KFC, Commonwealth Bank, Ford, and channel promos including Miranda Kerr saying “I’m ready to GO!”

169 Responses

  2. @ Bazza, I was talking about myself personally, I see GO! as the first real multichannel for me, not technically speaking. I don’t love every single sport ever made (I’m happy with Footy, Cricket and the odd motor race and Tennis) and nothing on taxpayer funded multichannels takes my fancy.

  3. Relieved to know I’m not the only one having issues with the picture quality. It’s worse in the ads. I thought I’d stuffed something up when I rescanned the set-top box.

  4. The Aria video show seems to be made in 3 hour blocks. Saw the same videos in the the same order at 6.45am as I did at 3.45am. Not that unusual for music shows, some of the cable music channels repeat blocks after a few hours as well at night. I guess you’re not meant to have them on that long?

  5. why cant we get go nine in Darwin are we not part of australia, it is so unfair they cut off 9HD so we have only normal channel nine . how about thinking we deserve better than this.

  6. The picture quality was pretty ordinary, some worse than others, plus there were a lot of artefacts and breakups, particularly on thier own CGI promos. They really didn’t put a lot of effort into Go, it wasn’t even really well publicised on 9, nor on the NineMSN website. Sure it’s a ‘soft launch’ (whatever that is) but it’s not as if Nine are new to this TV caper.

    @Luke W
    We’ve had “true” multichannel for years now. Nine is doing nothing that ABC and SBS, even Ten, didn’t do well before it (and in the case of ABC, many *many* years before). Perhaps if Nine had maintained unique programming on 90 there would be something to get marginally excited about….

  8. I agree with Morphane the promos of Survivor where terrible i was hoping it was teething problems, but alas it was`nt, it was a sign of things to come. I love survivor i been waiting for this all year, and it such a major let down. (yes yes i know it free be greatful, but 9 has been holding out, id rather they show it on the main station @ 1am)

    Totally agree with the countdown, i loved that about ONE, i thought that was awesome. Guess they where the first to launch multi channel.

  9. Oh i worked out the bad picture quality, they want us to stay on original 9, gee they do anything to retain ratings and viewers. He he he (P,s to late nine, you screwed us over one to many times, this was ya saving grace and yet again you failed us)

  10. I just want to say ‘hooray’ at the fact that Australia now has it’s first ‘proper’ multichannel. By that I mean that One HD, ABC 2 and SBS 2 don’t cout in my book as they are either catering for a niche market or a single genre. GO! Feels like the first true multichannel. Now I have another realistic option for content. Instead of 3 channels, I now have 4 (plus Foxtel!) I agree with the others. Surely the bit rate capacity is not fully used up? And great choice for the first movie on the channel with the original Vacation movie.

  11. From what I saw, the picture quality was shockingly bad. Even on my SD TV I could detect blocky artefacts. I’ve only noticed a similarly terrible picture for sporting events.

    I hope they get an avalanche of complaints before Survivor starts – I don’t want to put up with a picutre worse than analouge that should be HD!

  13. thanks to those who let me know what the EPG’s are doing for you, seems like it most definately is yet another 9 QLD screw up, unless they fix it tomorrow (coz it is a work day) they’ll be getting one angry hotline caller. also the printed guide listings are really hit and miss it seems, here the sunday mail tv guide does not mention GO at all, but they did get rid of 9HD. so basically they just can’t be bothered changing their format to fit the new channel, hopefully a lot of people will contact the sunday mail and they will fix it. have to say they did a good job with the watermark though, i don’t mind it. quite enjoyed aliens in america.

  14. @Zhane:

    The Courier-Mail’s TV Guide last Wednesday had Go’s TV guide in the Regional/Digital section at the bottom of the page (where ABC2/One HD is).

  18. GO! Is Awesome, Wipeout Good, Big Bang Thereo Good , I Love This Channel, Gives Me Something Else To Flick Over To In Other Ad Breaks.

    I’ll Be Use, Ooh The Quality Sucks, Ooh I’m Getting Ads From Not Where I Am.

    It’s Free TV Get Over It.

    GO! Rules.

  19. Yes! I’ve watched the launch of GO!

    But I do not realise that KFC (my favourite food), Commonwealth Bank (may favourite Bank to do my banking), Ford was the first ever ads during the first ever commercial break on GO!’s debut show “Wipeout”

    Cannot understand why there was no countdown, not fanfare, instead that happened on the introducing of the first stage of the Nine News / Today Show expansion (“The Nine News Overkill”) that happened on the early hours of Saturday June 27, 2009 after Extra was axed.

    Talk about soft launch. Promo loop ends at 6.32pm, a quick GO ident, then straight into Wipeout. But that’s a pity that the Nine News / Today Show expansion will happen again the day after Matt & Jason Bransby scream very loud.

  21. I have seen that Go! has shows on during Primetime, but what is being broadcast during the day, is it a simulcast of Channel Nine, or Promos or what?

  23. Sun Herald TV Guide has no mention of GO. Sunday Telegraph (finally) redesinged their appearence so they show 10 free to air cahnnels in clear columns rather than having digital channels as an afterthought, and includes GO!

    How bad for 7 though – 7HD same list as 7 with few hours of break aways each day. My guess is 7 does something about the same time as GO’s proper launch in October. Maybe Oct 15, 2nd anniversary of 7HD break away.

  24. Bit rate even worse on NBN’s Go on 88. 99 pixelated, but better than 88. 88 has more “real” ads then 99. 99 has too many self promo ads. Looks like NBN’s 88 feeds all of northern NSW coverage area, saw the Coff Harbour ad for RVs as well – not really a good ad for 16-39 year olds though!! KFC was first real ad on 99.

    Cannot understand why there was no countdown, not fanfare, nothing even on the 2nd half of 9 news. Talk about soft launch. Promo loop ends at 6.32, a quick GO ident, then straight into Wipeout.

  25. yuck, there was an ad for danoz direct. those sorst of ads on prime time really cheapens the channel. they’re better off giving away the ad space to their major advertising partners.

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